All That We See or Seem
by LillieJames
Summary: Post-Reichenbach. John finds coping with Sherlock's loss impossible, and his brain selects an alternative approach for him. Insipred by Sharona's gifset, and generously beta'd/brit-picked by the invaluable Kat. In progress, 4/?
1. Prologue

All That We See or Seem

_Prologue_

"So tell me how this works." Her voice, low and supposedly soothing, wormed its way into John's ears like the antithesis of comfort.

"I don't know." It came out sounding cold. He was uneager to approach the topic at all, and even less so on her terms. It wasn't that it was too new, or that he needed time to adjust. His entire life had become the adjustment - _this_ was the familiar part. This was why his gun stayed in its drawer, and this was why he never took more than his prescribed dosage of Rozerem. This was his and his alone, and he wasn't ready to share it.

Ella leaned forward, forcing him to duck his chin into his jumper in an obvious effort to avoid her probing stare. He was an truthful man by nature, and for all the betrayal his body had proven itself capable of, his eyes remained stubbornly honest.

"Just start at the beginning." Gentle, reassuring, and somehow a world away from helpful.

"I close my eyes, I open them, same as you." The words came carefully, after a full minute's pause. "It's like nothing has changed." He broke off for another moment, hesitating to reveal the extent of the situation. Ella kept her eyes fixed on him, clearly willing to draw things out with absolutely no concern for how John felt about it. Therapists, he thought, were supposed to take your money and make things easy for you. There was nothing easy about this.

"We run around London, solve cases, have dinner. We laugh, Sherlock gets bored, we fight, same as ever."

"And then what?" Well, the woman was nothing if not persistent. He supposed that was a worthwhile trait in a therapist, and he couldn't very well tell her to stuff it, not for that kind of money. He heaved an unnecessarily heavy sigh and glanced up quickly, hoping to see at least a little guilt. His efforts were rewarded with the shadow of a smirk – deserved, he supposed. The sigh _had_ been a bit dramatic.

"I wake up and I'm alone again. Everything is different. Wrong."

His voice broke. Just emotion this time, no theatrics.

"Cold."

"And you're not sure which is a dream? You can't tell whether you're awake or you're asleep at this very moment?"

He went back to staring at his toes, unwilling to give her a full confession. It was too personal, had become too integral to him. He shook his head, just barely, leaving ample room for ambiguity and provoking Ella into letting out an impressive sigh of her own.

"I can assure you, John, this is not a dream."

Okay, so maybe she wasn't as big on subtlety as he'd thought. Her voice had been careful but left absolutely no room for argument. He smiled to himself, just barely, the expression cynical and distinctly lacking in warmth.

She saw it though, of course she did. "What?"

John stood up, gaining the welcome advantage of his full height. Ella might be costing him an arm and a leg, but wasn't that all the more reason to stop seeing her? John was a reasonable man, and a smart one. He understood how his situation sounded, probably would have shrugged it off just as quickly had he been in her place. Things had moved past cushy armchairs and textbook psychology. Half his life, and he wasn't at all sure which one, was unequivocally a dream. It was, quite honestly, lunatic. He was thankful to Ella in a way, for pointing it out.

He turned back to her as he reached the door, struggling to find words for why therapy has instantaneously become so utterly useless to him.

"That's _exactly_ what the other therapist said."

And then he walked out.


	2. Chapter One

_Chapter One_

They hadn't started right away – too predictable. If John had been a superstitious man he might have found significance in the eight days that separated The Day and the first Dream, but he knew better than to look for signs in meaningless coincidences. Besides, those eight days had been the worst of his life and he had no desire to link them to the eight, perfectly normal text messages Sherlock had sent him on The Day, or the fact that their last for-pay case had involved an unbelievably simple cypher based around factorials of eight that had made Sherlock laugh out loud when John had pointed it out. He'd been driving the Yarders up the wall, the murders had been so stylistic, the solution _had_ to be brilliant, which meant Sherlock had to touch all the evidence, _all of it, Anderson, now_ – but in the end it had been nothing more than a financially motivated killer who knew his way around discreet asphyxiation but very little about math.

"Obvious! So _obvious. _I could kiss you John, I really could."

His whole face had lit up, a rare sight but always guaranteed when John, ordinary John, got something perfect.

The Yarders smirked and Donovan's eyebrows shot up far enough to get lost in her hair, practically screaming _"Gay!" _but John had been too thrilled with his deduction to give a shit.

So no, he didn't see anything significant about those eight days. In fact, he didn't see anything significant about any of his days anymore, really. It was the that eight night, and every night since, that had become the most significant part of John Watson's life.

The first night. Sherlock had been lounging around in his usual chair, looking bored enough to shoot whoever walked into the flat next, never mind the wall, and considering that Mrs. Hudson was the likeliest person for the job John decided it was high time for the pair of them to get some air. He looked Sherlock over carefully, deciding how likely he was to be roused without a full out tantrum.

_Eyes fixed on the ceiling, legs splayed out all too dramatically, one arm thrown around a cushion and the other hanging off the chair, fingertips barely missing the floor. Left leg? Completely still._

Good, then, he wasn't as miserable as he wanted to look. It was always the left leg; it gave a telltale twitch that for all the world mimicked a person flinching away from a particularly unpleasant smell. It never failed to make an appearance when Sherlock was well and truly pissed.

"Get up, we're having dinner out tonight."

"Dinner? _Dinner? _What for?"

_Consulting five year old_, John thought wearily to himself, then crossed over to the chair, leaning directly over Sherlock's face.

"Because food is necessary for survival Sherlock. Because of biology. Because I'm a doctor and even if I wasn't I could still tell you, quite accurately, that you are significantly underweight. And because Angelo's is free and you forgot to buy milk, _again_, along with all the rest of the groceries, and I really don't know how you expect me to cook anything when the damn flat is empty. Angelo's, _now."_

That had come out a bit angrier than he'd intended, but it wasn't exactly unwarranted. Sherlock, for his part, looked somewhere between properly chastised and amused. Well, it was better than the alternative. He got up slowly, languidly untangling each long limb until he was at his full six feet.

"Yes, _sir._" Sherlock shot back at him, the look on his face downright sinful. It was an expression he wore when he knew he'd really riled John up without quite sending him over the edge, a skill he seemed to consider a fine art form. The face was a look of sheer, wicked delight – on anyone else it would've read as _bedroom's that way, not that you've got a choice, and did I mention the riding crop? _But Sherlock, abstinent in favor of the work, was not a recreational whipping sort of man. The thought, frankly, was laughable, and John wasn't sure whether to do just that or blush at his thought process, which had just voluntarily grouped Sherlock, his bedroom, and the riding crop in an inexcusable order.

By the time they'd made it to Angelo's it had gotten properly dark, and the cloudless sky – such a rare site – was ablaze with tiny pinpricks of light. John stopped short outside the restaurant, tugging at the back of Sherlock's Belstaff to keep him from entering the restaurant.

"Sherlock, look at the sky. You don't have to know the moon from the stars, it doesn't matter, just look up. It's bloody gorgeous."

Sherlock turned to him quizzically. John knew he was being unusually sentimental; he was obviously a sensual man in certain respects, but he'd never been one to fixate on aesthetics unless other than those involving females (preferably employed by Mycroft). He gave a shrug and smiled, which seemed to settle Sherlock as he threw his head back to take in the glittering expanse above him.

It was the sort of sky that threatens to swallow you whole, so vast and deep that anyone looking properly feels themself shrinking away into nothing. John heard Sherlock's breath catch in his throat, and smiled quietly. For all his lofty airs and brilliant deductions, enough for most people to rule him out of the species entirely, Sherlock was most definitely human and occasionally capable of accepting a reminder. "It's beautiful" he said softly.

Dinner was a quiet affair that night. The restaurant was crowded, but Angelo took it upon himself to personally 'encourage' the unfortunate couple at their usual window table to leave a bit sooner than they'd planned.

They sat themselves down quietly. Sherlock seemed far away somehow, lost in thought. It wasn't an unusual look on him, but they were between cases and Moriarty was finally disposed of - John couldn't figure out what where his head might be. He didn't even protest when Angelo plunked a ridiculous looking carved candle down between them, winking in their direction as he turned back towards the kitchen. John thought he might've even seen a little smile – but surely he had imagined that. The thought turned his cheeks pink for the second time that evening.

_Really John, get a grip. He's an attractive man but that's no reason to make blushing a habit. _

Sherlock stayed quiet throughout the meal, almost like he was waiting for John to put the words in his mouth for him. John, for his part, was trying to focus solely on his food instead of the curve of Sherlock's upper lip, which had suddenly become considerably more interesting than it had any right to be. He stared down at his pasta, determined to avoid being caught ogling his flatmate. He eyed each noodle intently, and tried to think of how best to coax Sherlock into eating at least half his meal. An ambitious goal, certainly, but not unheard of, and with Sherlock so subdued John figured he was more than up to it.

When he finally glanced back up at Sherlock - _certainly not with the intent of testing if he'd memorized the lines of his cupid's bow, that would be ridiculous _- he was surprised to see Sherlock forking his own pasta into his mouth with what could very nearly be described as enthusiasm. John's jaw dropped, and Sherlock smiled pleasantly back at him.

"I don't eat and I get severely reprimanded. I eat and your resulting expression is that of a person who has just seen a ghost. Not that such a thing could ever occur, as ghosts are _clearly _a fictitious coping mechanism for people inhabiting creaky houses who can't manage grief appropriately, but you understand the figure of speech. Really John, what must I do to please you? Do tell, and make an effort to stop gaping, you look approximately as intelligent as Anderson."

John promptly clamped his jaws together, gawked for a few more seconds at Sherlock's nearly empty plate, then burst out laughing.

"Alright, you tosser, you've got me there. I haven't the foggiest what got you to put away an entire plate, but I'm thrilled that you managed it."

"I work well when properly motivated John, and I aim to please. You, that is."

John turned properly scarlet at his words, delicately spoken with just enough suggestion to make John wonder if there was any sort of implication behind his declaration. _Asexual_, he reminded himself. _Married to his work, and besides, you like flirting with women, not your bloody flatmate. _

As they walked back towards 221B, stomachs full and the sky lit up above them, John snuck a glance at the man beside him. Sherlock was wonderfully tall and practically glowing from a combination of starlight and well-placed streetlamps. He was undeniably beautiful, and all the more so for the parts of him that couldn't be see – that unbelievable brain, and the all too well concealed heart. John's eyes lingered, appreciating everything beside him, when he felt Sherlock's gaze turn down to meet his own.

They looked at each other for a fraction of a second, yet somehow much longer. John felt something twist in some unnamed part of him, and he bit back a grin.

_Alright, you're an idiot for it, but maybe it's time to extend your sexuality to include a certain genius. Women and flatmates, well _flatmate_ at least – that's perfectly fine, isn't it?_


	3. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two:**

It took him a full minute to remember that Sherlock was dead. Within those first sixty seconds, John pulled his covers back, sat up, rubbed his eyes vigorously, and tried to think if he had bought more of Sherlock's favourite coffee. By the time he remembered that there was nearly half a bag of the smoky grounds left unused on the top shelf of the leftmost cupboard, he had stopped caring because he had also remembered that there was no longer anyone left to drink it.

He peeled his shirt off, then his pants, and made his way slowly to the shower. His steps were deliberate but still awkward – he'd left the cane by the door, determined not to use it around the flat. He wasn't particularly surprised that he'd begun to require its assistance again, but he'd be damned before he used the thing to get from the sofa to the stove. Reaching into the shower to twist the handle, he pulled back quickly to avoid the icy jet that always proceeded the warm cascade. He moved his fingers back to the water tentatively, testing the temperature. The light, varied pressure formed a meaningless pattern against his fingertips, and he allowed himself to focus on it, shutting down his brain before it could find its way back to anything more than simple sensory reception.

By the time the pain registered in John's fingers, the now scalding water had begun to pool at the bottom of the tub. He stepped into the shower, gingerly introducing his shoulder to the increase in temperature. The heat seemed to intensify the ache, which had reappeared to plague him for the past eight mornings. He sighed, adjusting himself to expose as much of his body as he could to the water. The pressure, now evenly distributed, proved to be a much poorer distraction. John's mind shifted, he willed it to stay blank, but it was futile.

_Sherlock_.

One name, one word. It was all it took, but John knew by now that once he let himself think it, the excruciating reel of memories would play on repeat all throughout the day, and well into the night until he finally managed to keep his eyes shut for long enough to be overcome by the sheer exhaustion.

_Sleep. Something happened – sleep, Sherlock. Angelo's. Stars. _

Last night's dream came back in fragments, each vivid moment causing John to physically flinch. He kept his eyes pressed firmly shut, tilting his face up to towards the downpour, as if the spray might be able to drown the neurons that kept firing away, writing new pathways and sculpting new memories. He wanted to be left empty, utterly vacant – anything was better than the relentless playback, always _Sherlock Sherlock Sherlock._

And now, new material to loop back through the torture circuits. The dream had been so detailed, so accurate, so _happy_. John paused, frowning at the empty bathroom. The whole 'dinner at Angelo's' bit had been common enough between them – it was the only restaurant that Sherlock would never be thrown out of no matter how many inappropriately timed deductions he spewed, and the delicious free food didn't hurt either. John supposed they'd always looked a bit coupley when they'd gone round, but the dream had had a certain quality to it that amounted to more than other people's insinuations. The dream itself had been, well, _romantic. _

John felt himself twist the water off violently as he jumped out of the shower. With a towel around his waist, he limped to the kitchen and threw the kettle on, glaring at it as he waited for it to boil. He was furious - at the kettle, at the lack of bloody milk, and most of all at Sherlock.

_Romantic. As if the man was even genuinely thoughtful with any kind of frequency. _

John shook his head, trying to clear the space between his ears. He wasn't entirely sure why the dream had gotten him so worked up – it wasn't as if he really objected to the idea. He was straight, so there was _that_, but he was also aware of Sherlock's ability to effortlessly rewrite all his rules, no matter how fundamental he considered them to be. The implication, though it had been suggested by John's subconsciously rendered version of Sherlock, was bothersome primarily because there was absolutely nothing John could do about any sort of _feelings_ for his dead flatmate he might unearth now, and the idea of coping with a new and complicated twist was unbearable. As it was, he was averaging three and a half hours of sleep per night, his appetite had become downright Sherlock-esque, and every old army ache was back with a vengeance.

The high-pitched whine of the kettle broke his reverie, demanding his attention. He shuffled into the kitchen and flicked the stove off, then reached for the kettle. His shoulder screamed in protest as he extended his arm towards the far back burner and his teeth ground together in an angry grimace. His fingers finally closed around the kettle, but his shoulder quit as his arm was halfway back, and the kettle fell back to the stovetop with a resounding _thud._ John swore loudly, before picking the kettle back up with his right hand and shakily pouring himself a cuppa. With the tea clasped tightly in the same hand, he made his way laboriously over to Sherlock's chair, and sank down into the welcoming leather.

_Fucking absurd. You're an army man; you invaded bloody Afghanistan but you can't even walk to the kitchen to make a proper cuppa without one limb or another giving out. Psychosomatic, that's what he'd say if he were here. You're a fucking doctor; it's what _you _should be saying. Buck up and stop gimping about, what good does it do anyone?_

That, of course, was the problem. The limp and the shoulder were pointless, but Sherlock pitching himself off a roof had been even more pointless. Now Lestrade, Molly and Mrs. Hudson were constantly coming round at all hours, trying to coax him out of the flat and feed him. Mycroft was incessant with his ridiculous texts, _of course John didn't need anything from him, what could he possibly have to offer?_ All of it – _pointless_. Afghanistan had stripped John of purpose, cut him to pieces and stuck him back together with his parts out of place and a huge hollow inside where he vaguely remembered something else. Sherlock had taken one look at the broken shell and seen something, God knows John had no idea what, but whatever he'd recognized had been John's cue to stay.

He hadn't realized he was coming back to life until he woke up one day and that was it, he was _living._ All his individual parts slowly readjusted themselves, migrating back to their original locations. Bits got stuck along the way, and even when he felt his best he knew there was a difference, knew he wasn't the same man that he'd been when he'd first left England. It was enough though, this new version, more than enough. The legs that carried him were strong; no need for a cane. Behind his tanned face was a mind that had handled unspeakable atrocities and come out tough, come out morally sound. John had been a new man after only a few months with Sherlock, and he'd be damned if he hadn't been a better one.

But then the Fall, the pointless, excruciating, _stupid_ Fall, and John had found himself shattered into more pieces than he'd imagined possible. When he wasn't too busy remembering to breathe, and occasionally even to eat, each cruel emotion came crawling back, finding it's way under the covers and into the fridge and between the stacks of jumpers. The sadness was to be expected – that didn't make it any more bearable, but he wasn't surprised by it. The anger, too, was textbook, and sometimes John felt that it was as close too happy as he was ever going to come. The shame, though – that had been a surprise. Every time he stepped wrong, every pang from his shoulder served to remind him how well he'd done, how he'd been put back together, and how he'd become broken again so easily. He was a _soldier_, he'd fought to save countless people, seen the death of those he'd tried to save and witnessed the all-encompassing destruction of war, yet he had come out the other side. This was a single death, and he was fairly confident that the rest of his days would be spent coming to terms with it. John didn't doubt it for a second; _that_ was something to be ashamed of.

The day went by discreetly – he felt the hours passing but wasn't entirely sure where they were going, or how. Mrs. Hudson came up at two to force some biscuits on him, which he ate obediently but barely kept down. Lestrade called at six asking if he'd like to go round to the pub, and he gave a pathetic excuse before hanging up. By ten o'clock John found himself back in Sherlock's chair – _had he even gotten up? – _and decided that he'd given consciousness an impressive sixteen hours and he was ready to quit for the day. He set his tea down, then turned his face back in towards the chair allowed himself a quick moment burrowed in the soft leather. He was fairly certain leather didn't retain scent particularly well, and besides, it wasn't as if he wanted to _smell_ Sherlock or anything. The thought reminded him of his dream, obnoxiously pointing out that maybe that wasn't so true after all. John grumbled wordlessly into the chair, trying to supress the smile that was threatening to cross his face at the thought of smelling Sherlock. Ridiculous, absurd, _totally_ out of line, thought John was fairly certain Sherlock's face would have been priceless if he'd had ever tried such a thing.

_Maybe he'd dream about it_.

As John lay awake that night, eyes stubbornly refusing to stay closed, he found himself desperate for sleep. Not the usual oblivion, though anything was a welcome respite from the hellish mental circus that his days had become. No, this time he was almost hoping for a little more action.


	4. Chapter Three

_Note: I'm terribly sorry about the long hiatus – I got unexpectedly busy, but things are back on track so here you go. Also, extra thanks to the ever wonderful Kat (Hamish-and-holmes on tumblr if you want to check her out!) for being the greatest beta/britpick/friend._

**Chapter Three: **

The streetlamp outside 221B was broken. John stared at it, trying to remember if it had been like that the night before. Then he tried to remember if he'd even been home the previous evening, but he couldn't recall. He screwed his eyes up, staring intently at the dark lamp as if it might conjure up a clear recollection at any moment. The wrought iron was shadowy and hard to make it out, and he felt his vision slowly blurring as his mind took leave of his body and floated off, wandering lazily backwards through his vast network of accumulated thoughts. Moments later he was no longer in the flat, wasn't anywhere near it. His fingers balled up and his lips hardened into a taught line. He opened his mouth, soundlessly forming the first syllable of Sherlock's name when –

"He's dead. There's no reason to be worried anymore."

The words were uncharacteristically soft, gently redirecting his apparently masochistic brain safely back into his skull, on his body, very much in his flat.

He wasn't quite sure what Sherlock meant. A new case? Good, then. They hadn't had one for a while now. A few weeks? A month? Memory can be such an elusive aide to accurate chronology.

"Dead? Well, they usually are, aren't they, since you tend to turn your nose up at anything short of serial killings. Not that a living person would scare me, in fact, I sort of prefer it when the victim survives."

Sherlock's disapproving tone sliced through the stale night air.

"Don't be simple John, there's no _victim_. Just Moriarty. Dead. Your expression, subconscious as it were, nonetheless indicated anxiety of the variety generally reserved for that repellent spider preceding his death." His voice softened. Deepened? Couldn't have been, it was probably just the unparalleled acoustics of 221B. "And I – I don't like seeing you so upset."

John looked up, locking his surprised eyes on Sherlock's steady ones. "Well, I, uh – thank you, I suppose. And I _know_ he'd dead, don't think there's a person left in London who doesn't – suicide bombings, even the ones that don't manage to do in the proper targets, do make headlines."

"Obviously. And yet, the fact remains that you are a soldier with post traumatic stress disorder, no matter how unusual a form it takes. Mortiarty's demise, though not a war in the literal sense, was still a highly significant trauma and comparatively a quite recent one. Those facts, coupled with my comprehensive cataloguing of your every facial detail, enable me to deduce with _childish_ ease that a persisting fear of Moriarty still plagues you, thus acting as the seed of your emotions only moments ago. And as I have already stated, it concerns me. As I have already stated – _do_ try to keep up - I would infinitely prefer it if you weren't distressed. I would like to…help you."

Well, that was a bit unexpected. It seemed to have become an unspoken rule between them that Moriarty's manic-bomb-plot-gone-wrong was not to be discussed. They'd both lived, certainly, and with hardly a scratch, but it had been far too close for either of their liking. The emotions there were too complex for John to discuss without betraying his stiff upper lip, and evidently Sherlock felt the same. Or had.

"Listen, Sherlock, I'm alright. Yeah, it's been a bit weird, sort of scary at times when I forget he's blasted to bits. But it's not as if I actually forget, I more just, well, don't remember. But it's good of you to offer. Well, not that you were offering anything specific – blast. Just, well, thank –"

The stammered gratitude caught in his throat as his entire body constricted with shock. Something very warm had wrapped itself around his shoulders, and if his 20/20 vision was anything to go by, that something was Sherlock's lanky, well-dressed arm.

He gulped. "Sherlock? I said I was fine, you don't have to…"

He shut up, because _of_ _course_ Sherlock didn't have to. He never did a damn thing he didn't want to, as he constantly reminded John when the subject of dishes of groceries made it's cumbersome way into conversation. His muscles loosened ever so slightly at the realization, and he found himself relaxing into his flat mate's comforting embrace. Some very small and very honest but of his brain was upping the dopamine levels in his system, and he found himself openly grinning.

_We should probably hug more. Hugging is lovely. Hugging is better than therapy. Jesus Christ, did I say that aloud? Nope, thank God. Then again…_no._ Absolutely not going to even think that. Nope, nope, nope. _

By the time his brain had finished chasing its bloody tail round in circles, Sherlock had detached himself and wandered off towards the kitchen, probably to remove the incisors from whatever loathsome chemicals he had them marinating in this time. The loss of pressure on his shoulders left him feeling uncomfortably light, and he briefly regretted spending the rare moment of physical contact having a minor panic attack before he remembered that touching Sherlock was _not _something he coveted The process of blatant denial, however, was made somewhat less effective by the unconscious creeping of his fingers up towards the spot where Sherlock's had been moment's before. _Damn._

He _really_ needed to start lying to himself better.

When he finally managed to work his eyes open, it was only to examine the source of the dull ache in his lower back. Instead, he found himself being rather attentively stared at. Or whatever it was that empty eye sockets do, perhaps staring wasn't the proper verb, but he wasn't fully awake and vocabulary wasn't his top priority when a dead thing was carefully scrutinizing him. He blinked slowly, trying to rationalize the skull that was grinning broadly at him. When had he decided sleeping with a damn head in his room was a good idea?

As the rest of his surroundings solidified around him, he saw that the skull was, in fact, sitting in his usual spot on the mantle. Or hers, Sherlock had never confirmed the gender, simply referring to it as 'an old friend'. His proximity to said mantle and skull suggested that John was, for some unknown reason, not in his bed. Looking down and seeing the faded fabric of the sitting room couch confirmed his hypothesis.

_Brilliant deduction. Now, how the bloody hell did I end up on the couch?_

Still half asleep, John tried to remember the events of the previous night. He remembered an arm –_Sherlock's?_ – and a conversation about, fuck, about what? But then, if it _had _been Sherlock's arm, where was Sherlock now? Kitchen? Finally torn himself away from his microscope and gone to sleep?

_But wasn't Sherlock dead? _

His stomach clenched and he fought the urge to vomit.

Yes, definitely dead. Stupid, sodding fucker.

But his _arm_, it had been on John, hadn't it_? _

Not dead then.

_Dead_.

Not dead.

_Dead_.

The thoughts crashed into each other, there simply wasn't enough space in his brain, and he felt himself pressing his hands to his ears, trying to block it all out. The technique, unsurprisingly, was completely ineffective.

His face was suddenly wet, which was odd because he certainly wasn't crying. Little beads of water trickling out of his eyes, what a strange phenomenon, why hadn't anyone explained it at medical school?

_So he was crying. Why was he be crying? _

A single drop of liquid trickled into his mouth; he instinctively swept it up with his tongue. The unwelcome saltiness broke open the confused cacophony in his head, and for a moment there was nothing.

Dead.

Not dead?

No, dead.

_Fuck._

He stood up, limping rather badly, and made his way to the stove to put the kettle on. Another morning like this one and he was going to go mad. The salt dried in tracks across his cheeks, he barely noticed. Hours later, waiting in line at Tesco, he would feel it cracking on his skin, and his leg would momentarily buckle. A kind woman with a tired face would rush over to help him up, and the shame would be nothing like he'd ever felt. The cane would be pressed back into his hand. Pairs of concerned eyes would track his laborious steps past the check out and through the doors. He would leave his groceries, because another moment of human pity wasted on him would be so much worse than the pangs of hunger he would endure later. Anything – hunger, thirst, even a blow to the back of his skull – would be more welcome to him than another sympathetic stranger. Refusing to take a cab on the way back home, John forced himself to move forwards, silently thankful for the sharp pain that coursed through his leg and temporarily numbed his constant, far deeper ache.


End file.
